E-visa for British nationals visiting Australia

Around 700,000 British nationals visit Australia every year and, with the strong AngloAustralian relations further post-Brexit, it is expected that the number of British tourists will be more in the coming years. With this in mind, the Australian government has made it easy for the British nationals visiting the country.

If you are British and wish to visit Australia, you don’t have to send your passport to the Australian High Commission anymore. All visas issued to British citizens going to Australia are issued electronically. If you have a British passport, just go to the electronic passport reader and pass through the SmartGate. At present, electronic passport reader system can be used by people with passports from 17 countries.

Australia is also considering new technologies to make the process more simple. The country is expecting that it would soon be possible to set up a system which identifies the traveller’s face on arrival and matches it with the biometric information in the chip in his/her passport. If this will become functional, you need not have to remove your passport from your pocket or handbag and would be able to go from aircraft to baggage carousel without having to show your passport to either a machine or an immigration officer. If things go well, Australia would be the first country in the world to introduce it.